New series! 🔥💫
In this series I'm gonna be exploring God's attributes, and at the same time try to bring down theological principles into the realm of our everyday lives. Stay tuned! 👀
For now, let's get into it!
God is Love.
God's Love has almost become a cliché. It's often presented as this feel-good emotion that has the power to heal all situations. Broken heart? God's love will heal you. Broken leg? God's love can heal you. And the world is left in the dust believing that Christians are delusional and detached from the real travesties that ravish our world.
This if course is not how God's love works. God's love isn't this magical healing force, it's both something he deeply feels and something he does. The dictionary defines love as an intense feeling of deep affection, or a strong feeling of sexual attraction. Of course, God's love is much deeper than this; He is Love. What does that mean? whilst it's impossible to understand Christ's love fully, God invites us to begin to know the height and the depths of His love.
What is God's Love?
I couldn't possibly cover all of which love is (simply because I don't know) but here are a couple biblical ideas; Love is:
1. A Choice.
Romans 5:8 says "But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners."
God chose us. Think about the people we chose to love. It's normally morally upstanding people or people who think like we do. But God lovingly chose to sacrifice his life for people who don't even care about him. Love is a choice. If it's not a choice, it's not love. And trust me, love grows. The love I have for people today may be different tomorrow. But in Christ we find an endless love; Paul prays in Ephesians 3:17-18 that by God's spirit we would become strong as we become rooted in love. But for that to happen we have to choose to walk God's way; We can't be rooted in love and then choose to walk in our own way. Love is a choice.
2. Action
1 John 4:10 says "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.(NIV)" When God sent his son out of his love, it was in full knowledge of the pain that Christ would bear on our behalf. Action brings reality to the value of sacrifice. Love always results in an action.
Now this is a point of debate because many would say "If I don't show my love it doesn't mean that I don't love", and this is true (kinda.) But remember God is love. So therefore our selfish self-motivated concept of love that the world projects isn't truly love at all. An infinite love (of which God is) wishes to express itself at any and every opportunity. As broken people, we live lives of incomplete love. But as God's love grows in us, it chooses more and more to be expressed through action. This doesn't have to be a physical doing (although a lot of the time it is.) God's mere presence in our lives is an act of love unto itself. It's an action of which God intentionally chooses never to leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5) because of the value he sees in us. God loves us exactly as we are. This isn't an invitation to stay the way we are, but rather a motivation each day to become more like Christ.
3. Selfless/ Sacrificial
Love both seeks the best interest of others and of God. In Mark 12:30-31, a man asks Jesus "what is the greatest commandment", and Jesus says it's two things: To Love God and To Love Others. So, which one is most important? Both. We're all made in God's image and are reflections of him, so we Love God by Loving Others and vice-versa. That means putting aside our selfish thoughts, goals and ambitions, for the sake of others. God sacrificially chose us and has loved us and will continue to love us despite our deepest flaws. He benefits nothing from it, He loves us because he loves us because he loves us.
4. God.
God is love. And the longer we spend time with him and allow his love to grow, the more we get to know and experience him.
My Story
releasing Control.
Recently I revisited 1 Corinthians 13, of which says "If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing." (vv.2)
This really resonated in my heart, because at the time, I was focusing on God's spiritual gifts before even thinking about God's love or loving others (I'm still guilty of this). The Bible says in Hebrews 11:6a "And without faith it is impossible to please God" and therefore, I went to Soul Survivor with an expectation of an enriched faith.
At the start, I was earnestly praying for faith, and it was all going swimmingly. As time went on however, I found myself getting more and more empty. Then feelings of isolation that I thought had already been dealt with came rushing back. My faith plan had gone awry. Since I didn't have faith that God saw me as his child, my faith had declined instead of grown. Then one night in Late Night Worship, I had almost fully accepted defeat. I was made to be alone, and there was nothing I could do about it, I said. No-one sees my value, and I'm about to just give up.
Then in desperation and defeat I released control and asked for God to reveal to me his love, and asked him to be my friend. In a moment God's love overwhelmed me. For the first time in a major way, I had released control over my mind and God filled me in the one area I'd never thought of: Love. The rest of the week just consisted of God reminding me and revealing to me his love, and in the process revealed my whole thought process. I'm still discovering my identity, but now I know i'm not alone in my walk with God, and that Christ laid his life down for me because he truly loves me.
It was in my releasing control that I found God's love, because I truly wanted the saviour, and was (and am) willing to give up my thoughts and habits to experience who he is.
Seek Love
Jesus said "seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.(Matt 6:33) " When you pursue love, you find every spiritual and natural blessing that God has in store for us. I was pursuing faith because I wanted to be this isolated hero. But 1 Corinthians 13 says that "Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." (vv.7) In faith we find Love. If we pursue Love, faith grows.
The prime biblical example of this is Saul, Later known as Paul the Apostle. He was effectively a pious Jewish terrorist, that saw Christ as a false idol. However, After Paul had a transformative experience with risen Jesus in Acts 9, he became a devoted Christian and key ambassador for the faith. Years later, Paul (Saul) says in Philippians 3:8 , "everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." Imagine that! The same man who used to hate Christ, after spending time with him and experiencing his Love considers all things worthless in comparison to him.
So Love (and therefore God) Should be our ultimate aim, but how do we do that? Like I find it hard to just Love something, so how does it happen? The answer is the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit
I've hardly talked about the Holy Spirit in my Fruit n' Mann[a/er] series, but I'll delve deeper in time. The Holy Spirit is God's personal presence, and is a person of the trinity.
To keep it brief, In the Old Testament the Temple was where the physical presence of God came to live. Jesus then promised before his resurrection that the same Holy Spirit would come and fill his people. Then on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 the Holy Spirit comes and rests on the disciples. But it's not just for the disciples, it's for all Christians; Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:19 "Don’t you realise that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?You do not belong to yourself,"
This is where the fruits of the spirit come in. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit produces in us Love, Joy, Peace etc as a result of his presence in our lives. Often times we think that we produce these things by trying to be more holy. Paul already proved that this doesn't work. When he was a zealot he lived to be holier for himself and failed. The whole point is that the Holy Spirit produces these things in our lives. So how can we all practically Love God?
1. Releasing Control into the Holy Spirit.
we can't Love God...without God.
This for me is a daily struggle. I'm by nature pretty independent and can tend to be prideful. However my experience at Soul Survivor made me realise that God is in control and is dependable. The world we inhabit is very broken and projects this "Hustle Harder" mantra; To push ourselves to reach our potential. I came to the knowledge that Jesus never reached his potential. For 18 years we don't hear from him from when he is 12 to when he is 30. He spent his time learning to be a carpenter, and had not performed any miracles before this time. By worldly standards, Jesus didn't reach his potential. But instead, he was obedient to God's will.
We often lose sight of who God is. He stands outside of time. He's the God on high. He created the Heavens and the Earth, and he lives in us. Somehow, despite this knowledge, I often think that I have a better plan for my life than God does. We think that we harness the power of the Holy Spirit to use at our will. This isn't how God works. by letting go of our will, we allow God's love to overtake us. Let go control. You can't rush the promises of God. Jesus says to his disciples in John 14:26, "the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."
This is absolutely radical, and calls for absolute dependence on God. Proverbs 3:5-6 says 'Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.'
It all comes down to this: We trust God by letting go. We love God by honouring that he is in control. Fear binds us in self-control; Mainly by fear of failure, amongst other fears. The Holy Spirit offers freedom, as perfect love casts out all fear, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. So ask God to help you to release control into the Power and Love of the Holy Spirit.
2. Prayer (asking)
Prayer works.
God has always loved us. God Loves me. God Loves you. He Loves every single person unconditionally. When we pray for love, we are not praying for God to love us more; We pray for us to greater experience his love.
This came true for me as I prayed for God's love to overtake me and was greatly moved as I heard God's still small voice say "I Love you." Pray that the Holy Spirit would allow God's love to grow in you. That his love would be revealed to you. And don't just do a hit and quit; persistence is the secret sauce. Don't pray once for God's love to be revealed and then when you feel nothing you give up. The whole point is God wants relationship with you. He isn't your spiritual philanthropist. He doesn't just give you things when you ask and that's it. He wants to be close to you. He wants to be intimate with you, because he loves you. Paul often in his letters wrote prayers that our Love would overflow more and more (Philippians 1:9.) If you ask, even if it doesn't feel like it, God will turn up.
3. God's Word
Truth about who(se) you are.
There's a verse of scripture that i've looked past all my life, that has come alive to me in recent weeks. John 15:13 says " There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."
On the surface, it's a whatever statement, and seemingly random, until you realise two things: Jesus considers us his friends, and is our ultimate friend (John 15:15.) He chose us ( Jesus said You didn’t choose me. I chose you. [John 15:16] ), he is with us (through the Holy Spirit), and he sacrificed his life for us (Whilst we were still sinners, he died for us [Romans 5:8] )
This blows my mind every time. God calls us his friends. Truly. We do stupid things, act in silly ways and treat others like crap, and God still chooses to be friends with us.
The point i'm trying to make is that the Word of God found in the Bible revealed a new paradigm of God's love through a scripture I used to think isn't that important. For me when I asked God to be my friend, I wanted to know and be intimate with that God, whilst honouring his Glory as the Holy One; Not just as an intellectual truth, but as something I understand in my heart. This points back towards both prayer and persistence. To learn about love, the best places to look are in 1 John 3 onwards, 1 Corinthians 13, and John 14-16. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the truth of God's love through his word; It will begin and continue to transform the way you live and the way you see God.
4. Community/Unity.
God's POV
God's love through Community has recently transformed my life, but before I start, God's truth about who we are is more important than any imperfect person (so any persons') opinion. God calls us his workmanship (Ephesians 2:10), that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), that we are His Chosen people and His prized possession (1 Peter 2:9-10) and calls us His children (1 John 3:1) ... and this doesn't even scratch the surface. God's view of us is wayyyy more important.
We need community.
For the longest time I used God's authority as an excuse to stay isolated. And whilst it's true we need God, we also need people; God says in Genesis it's not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18). I now have transformative relationships with a small select few that have enriched and empowered my life. I earnestly Pray that God will continue to enrich our relationships, and place the right people in our lives. Community is not in numbers of friends, it's in quality and depth of relationship.
We need discernment.
Don't get me wrong, I am aware that the Bible says “Bad company corrupts good character.” (1 Corinthians 15:33) Just because we are called to love others doesn't mean we have to be are friends with or open with everyone who enters our lives. James 1:5 says 'If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. ' We need to pray that God will give us discernment on who to surround ourselves with and how to act in love.
We need to love.
Finally, The only new command that Jesus gave the disciples was to love one another as Christ has loved us. This doesn't just mean other Christians, this means the people we interact with. And i'm not gonna front, this is really, really hard. But it doesn't mean we have to be friends with everyone, it means we should to add value to them. When we speak and act it should add value to others. .Colossians 3:14 says 'Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. ' So this is a final call to not just ask God to be our friends, or ask God to give us loving friends, but to ask God to continually shape us to grow to be more loving in him. I Pray that The Holy Spirit would strengthen you in love, and help you to love others. Seek God's love that not only strengthens, but builds up others.
❤️❤️❤️
I will never be able to fully communicate how passionate about this I have become, but it's changed my whole walk with God. Christianity is about what God has done through Jesus, and his sacrifice was the ultimate act of love. If we miss Love, we miss who God is and what he stands for.
I pray that we would pursue God's love; That we would choose to sacrifice our will for his sake by releasing control of our hearts' minds and lives. I pray that we would completely rely on the Holy Spirit. I pray that we would experience his love, and that we would ask him to fill us up with his love. I pray that we would find his love in the Bible and in the community he has and he will continue bless us with. I pray that we would know in our hearts that we are boundlessly loved by God beyond measure.
Amen! 🔥💫
As always, I've put some helpful materials below. Also, Subscribe at the bottom of this post for more posts in the future (either the bottom of this page or the home page, just sign up! 😝)
God Bless ❤️
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